


All Guns and No Grace [Preview]

by i_got_these_words



Category: 19天 - Old先 | 19 Days - Old Xian
Genre: Explicit Language, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-18
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-07-07 23:36:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19859893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_got_these_words/pseuds/i_got_these_words
Summary: “For years you told me you didn’t agree with any of it. Taking a life. Taking apart a nation. Calling it just and not calling it what it is: genocide.”TianShan x Military AU





	All Guns and No Grace [Preview]

**Author's Note:**

> ✪✪✪ Author's Note ✪✪✪
> 
> Conscientious objection is “a firm, fixed, and sincere objection to participation in war in any form or the bearing of arms, by reason of religious training and/or belief.” (United States Department of Defence Instruction 1300.06)
> 
> The United Nations Human Rights Council recognises “the right of everyone to have conscientious objection to military service as a legitimate exercise of the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.” (OHCHR)
> 
> However, the right to conscientious objection, including selective conscientious objection, continues to be debated in many parts of the world and, in some, is not only not recognised by law, but equates to forced recruitment, incarceration and/or execution.
> 
> This AU takes place in a fictitious realm and, as such, military terms, organisation and conduct are not factually accurate of any one particular nation’s armed forces.
> 
> **This is a preview of a military AU fic that I was inspired to write after all the angst in Old Xian's latest update (chapter 291). I would be very grateful for your feedback on whether it is worth pursuing this plotline further.**
> 
> There is a brief glossary of terms in the End Notes.
> 
> ✪✪✪ Content Warnings ✪✪✪
> 
> Please be advised that this work contains strong references and/or explicit content relating to war crimes, child soldiers, child abuse (specifically emotional), ethnic persecution, sexual prejudice, chronic illness, and death(s) of characters.
> 
> **The views expressed in this work do not necessarily reflect those of the author.**
> 
> _For the servicemen and servicewomen who never came home._   
>  _For the children of war who have never known a day of peace._

The skies were overcast, burdened with promises on the verge of being broken. Daunting thunderheads, dark and dense, were rendered ragged shadows on the ground below, auguring a dismal day. Reflecting the grey, the grim and the gloom above, the canal waters were still and stoic as they braced for the downpour due.

He Tian was just as still, the dull grass withered and damp beneath his hands, as he braced himself. Only, he was waiting for a different kind of storm.

He didn’t have to wait long.

“When were you going to tell me?” The wind whipped the softly spoken words from Guan Shan’s lips, scattering them over the hillside they were perched on. Tainted the lacklustre green with He Tian’s sins. Turned it into his confession ground.

Guan Shan wouldn’t look at him. Focusing on the murky water of the canal at the bottom of the hill, he asked again, “When, He Tian?”

The lack of intonation almost made it seem like Guan Shan wasn’t asking at all. Like his question wasn’t a question. Like he already knew everything he needed to know.

But He Tian knew him better than that; he knew the flat inflection meant Guan Shan was feeling too much that was real to manage a pretence of anything else.

“I thought we…” The muscles in Guan Shan’s jaw bunched. “I thought we agreed.”

_We did. We do._

He Tian took in a biting-cold breath. “I need to do this.”

“Funny. Last night, it was ‘I need you’,” Guan Shan scoffed. “You don’t need shit.” And his tone cut deep.

“I have a duty.” He Tian replied, the rehearsed words weighing his tongue down.

_Duty. Honour. Country._

“When did duty start to sound like a death sentence?”

“Six years, Guan Shan. Six years, then I’m out.”

Guan Shan nodded. And He Tian knew what he was thinking, knew what Guan Shan was saying without saying anything at all.

_Or sooner. In a casket wrapped in a flag._

Both Guan Shan’s parents had served: his father as a combat engineer; his mother, who was part Khaisan, as an interpreter. When he was twelve, Guan Shan had buried his father and, a year and a half later, he buried the mutilated remains he was told had belonged to his mother; she’d been at the mercy of insurgents for six months because a rescue mission was deemed “ill-advised”.

Not enough funds. Not enough soldiers on the ground.

What they had meant was, she wasn’t Chuan enough.

“I know you don’t believe in this war.” He Tian paused as Guan Shan huffed a humourless laugh. _I don’t either._ “But I can’t stand by and watch my countrymen and countrywomen fight and not fight alongside them.” _My dad saw us kissing._ “What life would I have lived if I didn’t fight for what mattered?” _If I don’t do this, he’ll report us and you’ll be imprisoned, not for your ‘crime against nature’, but for the Khaisan blood that runs in your veins – which is much, much worse._

“You don’t have to pick up a weapon to fight,” Guan Shan countered.

“I don’t know any other way.” _He won’t accept anything less._

He Tian winced as the wind blustered against him, blasting his hair and blistering his skin.

Baring his fucking soul.

Except, He Tian couldn’t afford to be that honest with Guan Shan. Not now. Maybe not ever again.

Chuanhei’s feud with Jilaan spanned centuries, neither nation backing down, neither knowing how. But the latest war, decade-long, was starting to take its toll – on the people, on their numbers, on their humanity. Khaisa shared borders with both countries and, following the recent amendment to their Arms Act, the underbelly of its capital had turned into a production hub for unserialised firearms. When a military raid two years ago unearthed hundreds of crates of ghost guns and ammunition in rebel-owned warehouses at one of the busiest ports in Jilaan, Chuanhei accused Khaisa of fuelling the guerrilla warfare, of picking a side when it had insisted it wanted no part in the warring nations’ politics and bloodshed. But Chuanhei could not declare war on Khaisa; it would never be able to sustain a conflict of that magnitude – and survive. So, instead, in true Chuan cowardness, it brought the battle home and, at every opportunity, any citizen with a drop of Khaisan blood in their ancestry was subjected to unspeakable prejudice and persecution. Guan Shan was no exception, but his mother’s heritage was a little-known fact.

He Tian’s father knew, though. At first, his displeasure and disapproval of their friendship was nothing more than hurtful words and hostile looks. And then, last month, his father had confronted He Tian with footage of two sixteen-year-old boys sharing a chaste kiss behind the school’s gym. His distaste had turned sharply to disgust; homosexual acts were a punishable offence in Chuanhei, a country at war that could not afford to legalise a union that supplied no offspring. No soldiers.

_‘I fucking told you that Khaisan trash was trouble.’_

He Tian still didn’t know who had filmed them, but he knew that his father, a former lieutenant general and a prominent figurehead, had likely forked a hefty sum for their silence, hush money that He Tian was now expected to pay back in blood.

_‘That little faggot make you suck cock, boy?’_

A mass of wind-churned litter lurched past.

“When my enlistment ends,” He Tian began, “we can travel. I’ve always wanted to go to Almina.”

“What the fuck’s in Almina?” Guan Shan asked, dismissive.

_Same-sex marriage._ “Elephants, doofus. The last of ’em.”

Two weeks shy of his seventeenth birthday, He Tian figured if he was old enough to enlist and sign his life away, he was old enough to decide who he wanted to share that life with.

“Six years is a long time,” Guan Shan mumbled. “Not sure the elephants will still be around.”

He Tian tried for a smile and felt it wobble. “You’ll still be around though, right?”

_You’ll wait for me, won’t you?_

“War changes a person, He Tian.”

“I’ll still be me.” Subtly, he brushed the back of his hand against Guan Shan’s. And watched as Guan Shan shifted, pulling away.

“I already feel like I don’t know you.”

_Shit._

“Guan Shan –”

“For years you told me you didn’t agree with any of it. Taking a life. Taking apart a nation. Calling it just and not calling it what it is: genocide.”

He Tian swallowed, or tried to, because fuck if it didn’t feel like Guan Shan’s words were a barbed garrotte around his throat.

Turning his head up towards the sky, Guan Shan asked, “So what’ll it be? Marine like your old man?”

He Tian didn’t say anything. Couldn’t.

“A sky pirate like your brother, then?”

The sullen silence stretched between them, interrupted only by the rustle of fallen, frayed leaves and the occasional guttural caw of a crow.

“Army,” He Tian said, eventually.

Guan Shan nodded, like it made sense. Like any of it could make any fucking sense. “Branch?”

He Tian closed his eyes. Exhaled. “Infantry.”

“Frontlines,” Guan Shan whispered, sounding even flatter than he did before.

_The gates of Hell._

“Guan Shan, please. This isn’t about us.” _It’s about you._

“Yeah, you said. _Duty._ ” Guan Shan plucked a blade of grass from the ground. Twirled it around between thumb and forefinger. “What does that even mean? To obey, no questions asked? To relieve yourself of a burden that isn’t yours? Or…” He relaxed his hold and let the wind blow the grass blade away. “To be expendable, replaceable, your worth only extending as far as the ribbons on your chest? And, sometimes, not even that.”

He Tian was so close to telling Guan Shan then, telling him what a fuckstain his father was, telling him about the choice that wasn’t a choice at all.

But Guan Shan was a self-sacrificing bastard and would rather be incarcerated for life than let He Tian serve for six years. And He Tian was a fucking hypocrite for finding fault in that because he would do the same if their roles were reversed – an eternity in a prison cell over Guan Shan spending even a minute on the battlefield.

_Fuck._

He wanted so bad to believe that he would be back, but He Tian knew the odds were against him; infantry always bore the biggest brunt in warfare. He didn’t regret his decision, he just wished Almina was more than just a promise he couldn’t keep.

The skies cracked and crackled.

And he wasn’t sure whether they cried with him, or for him.

✪ ✪ ✪

Yesterday 11:15 PM

**You:** hey  
  
**You:** so I ship out tomorrow  
  
**You:** doubt I’ll get leave between osut and jump school  
  
**Guan Shan:** k  
  
**You:** I’ll be deployed straight after  
  
**You:** I’ll write you  
  
**Guan Shan:** don’t

  
  
Today 05:02 AM

**You:** I love you, Mo Guan Shan

✪ ✪ ✪

Basic was hell.

But he hadn’t expected it to be anything less.

Snapping drill sergeants kept his mind from ruminating over ‘what if’ scenarios, and gruelling PT made it hard to remember what life was like before first formation at zero five hundred hours. At lights-out, he was too exhausted to remember his own name. But come sunrise, before the communal ritual of shit-shower-shave, he would think of Guan Shan – of the way he would shake his head to hide his amusement, the way he shuddered whenever He Tian kissed him, and the way they had parted, sans smiles, kisses and hopes for a happily ever after.

_He’s safe. That’s all that matters._

✪ ✪ ✪

The night was darker than the wrong end of a grenade launcher, starless, a sliver of a moon hung as an afterthought. The only sounds were the electric hum of a generator, the crunch of gravel beneath boots, and the occasional echolocation of nocturnal bats.

It was week fifteen of OSUT, day three, nearing twenty-one hundred hours.

Having wrapped up their DFAC duties, He Tian and his battle buddy made their way back to the barracks.

Zhan Zheng Xi was a man of few words and He Tian liked that about him; he never spoke to fill a silence, only to make a statement, and, often, his silence was a statement all on its own. But, as a consequence, when they were first partnered up, He Tian hadn’t known much about him. Since then, though, he’d learned that Zheng Xi was older than the average recruit, having enlisted half-way through college. He’d dropped out because his sister fell ill and a cycle of chemotherapy was more expensive than a collector’s Stoner 63. But the Army promised soldiers and their families health insurance, so Zheng Xi had set aside his dreams so that maybe, one day, his sister could pursue hers.

“Do you think there’s a difference, He, between denial and hope?”

Glancing at Zheng Xi, He Tian thought about the length of his service, about surviving a tour, about staying safe. And sane. He thought about going home, and how the only home he’d ever known was by Guan Shan’s side.

And then he thought about how Guan Shan hadn’t picked up when he’d called before boarding the plane to bootcamp.

“Not sure that it matters,” Zheng Xi continued. “We’re fools either way.”

✪ ✪ ✪

Twenty weeks of ‘toeing the fucking line’. Twenty weeks of battle drills, warrior tasks and marching cadence. Twenty weeks of treating an M4, not as a weapon, but as an extension of himself. Because he, an infantryman, _was_ the army’s weapon.

It was graduation day.

His father hadn’t attended, but He Tian hadn’t expected him to. He’d received a curt letter from his brother, who was currently stationed at an airbase overseas, essentially telling him that life was shit and he could either be a shovel or a spoon. The choice was his.

The ceremony, stiff and stale, was described by the Battalion Commander as ‘a rite of passage from civilian to soldier’. Except, as He Tian marched in formation across a parade field towards a gathering of family and friends, the black beret a crushing weight on his head, he’d never felt more like a child.

Or more alone.

With the formalities over, He Tian snaked through the crowd of crying and congratulatory relatives. Spotting Zheng Xi at a distance with an older couple and a ghost of a girl in a wheelchair, he acknowledged his battle buddy with a nod before navigating back towards the barracks. He had a couple of hours before the bus to Airborne School was scheduled to leave. His stuff was already packed, his shit all squared away. There was nothing for him to do back at his quarters, but, equally, there was nothing for him amidst the mob of mourners weeping over the losses to come.

He Tian was plucking out his pass to get through the first set of gates leading to the southern barracks when the Army Band started up again: grating guitars, abrasive basslines and crippling percussion – the vocals absent, but the lyrics ever-present.

He lost himself then, in the mantra that no civilian could hear.

And no soldier could ignore.

_It's time to strap our boots on_

_Wipe the blood out of our eyes_

_We are soldiers, we are soldiers_

_And this is a perfect day to die_

_Hooah! Let me hear your battle cry_

**Author's Note:**

> ✪✪✪ Glossary of Terms ✪✪✪
> 
> **Basic:** Basic Combat Training (BCT), also known as bootcamp, where recruits undergo an intense program of physical and mental preparation for the army.
> 
> **Battle buddy:** A soldier or recruit assigned to partner up with one of their peers; part of the ‘forced-best-friend system’ in the army.
> 
> **DFAC:** Dining facility, also known as chow hall; the cafeteria.
> 
> **Formation:** The arrangement of troops or recruits as a unit.
> 
> **Infantry:** The main land combat force.
> 
> **Jump School:** Airborne School.
> 
> **M4:** The M4 carbine is a type of assault rifle usually restricted to military and law enforcement personnel.
> 
> **OSUT:** One Station Unit Training, a training program in which recruits remain in the same unit for both Basic Combat Training (BCT) and Advanced Individual Training (AIT).
> 
> **PT:** Physical Training
> 
> **Sky pirate:** (Airforce) Enlisted aircrew.
> 
> **Stoner 63:** A modular weapon system conceived by Eugene Stoner in the 1960s. An engineering ingenuity, it can be reconfigured into multiple different firearms including a rifle, a carbine, a top-fed light-machine gun, a belt-fed squad automatic weapon, or a vehicle-mounted weapon.
> 
> ✪✪✪ Author's Note ✪✪✪
> 
> The lyrics above have been adapted from the song 'Soldiers' by Otherwise.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I would be eternally appreciative if you dropped me a line with your thoughts about continuing this fic!
> 
> Love,  
> Zack x


End file.
